Wikipedia:Main Page history/2017 January 23

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From today's featured article

Jochen Rindt (1942–1970) was the only racing driver to be posthumously awarded the Formula One World Drivers' Championship, after his death during the 1970 racing season. His debut in Formula One came in 1964 at the Austrian Grand Prix. He began racing for Cooper in 1965, then moved to Brabham for 1968 and Lotus in 1969. It was at Lotus that Rindt found a competitive car, although he had concerns about its safety. He won his first Formula One race at the 1969 United States Grand Prix. He had a very successful 1970 season, winning five of the first nine races, mainly in the revolutionary Lotus 72. In practice for the Italian Grand Prix, he spun into the guardrails after a failure on his brake shaft, and died from throat injuries. Overall, he competed in 62 Grand Prix races, winning 6 and achieving 13 podium finishes. He was also successful in sports car racing, winning the 1965 24 Hours of Le Mans paired with Masten Gregory in a Ferrari 250LM. Rindt was a popular figure in Austria and his success increased interest there in motorsport, and Formula One in particular. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

The Bears Ears

... that the newly designated Bears Ears National Monument (pictured) in southeastern Utah protects 100,000 archaeological sites, including Ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings more than 3,500 years old?
... that the Church of England Marriage Measure 2008 gave couples the legal right to get married in any parish where their parents or grandparents were married, but not in any cathedral?
... that the Philadelphia Phillies had four players record a batting average over .400 during the 1894 season?
... that at the end of the Trunajaya rebellion, King Amangkurat II stabbed the defeated rebel leader Trunajaya to death?
... that Edward C. Macfarlane worked for The Wasp and later married its owner's sister?
... that sea slug Chelidonura fulvipunctata is likely an anti-Lessepsian migrant?
... that "When This Cruel War Is Over" was one of the most popular sentimental ballads of the American Civil War, sung by both Union and Confederate troops?

In the news

Women's March, Washington, DC

Millions of people worldwide join the Women's March protests (pictured) in response to Donald Trump's inauguration as President of the United States.
Following armed intervention of the ECOWAS alliance, Yahya Jammeh steps down as President of the Gambia and goes into exile, ending the Gambian constitutional crisis.
At least twenty firefighters are killed and more than seventy people are injured when Tehran's Plasco Building collapses due to a high-rise fire.
Four earthquakes in the Abruzzo region of Italy result in an avalanche, leaving at least five people dead and twenty missing.
A suicide bombing at a military camp near Gao, Mali, kills at least seventy-seven people.

On this day...

January 23

Madeleine Albright

1264 – King Louis IX of France issued the Mise of Amiens, a settlement between King Henry III of England and barons led by Simon de Montfort heavily favouring the former, which later led to the Second Barons' War.
1793 – The Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia partitioned the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth for the second time.
1915 – The Chilembwe uprising, regarded as a key moment in the history of Malawi, began as rebels, led by a minister, attacked local plantation owners.
1997 – Madeleine Albright (pictured) was sworn in as the first female United States Secretary of State, becoming the highest-ranking woman in the history of the U.S. government at that time.
2001 – Five people attempted to set themselves on fire in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, an act that many people later claimed was staged by the Communist Party of China to frame Falun Gong and thus escalate their persecution.

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From today's featured list

Peter Martyr Vermigli

The works of Peter Martyr Vermigli, a Reformed theologian of the Reformation period, include commentaries on I Corinthians, Romans, Judges, Kings, Genesis, and Lamentations based on his lectures. Born in Florence, he fled Italy to avoid the Roman Inquisition in 1542. He lectured on the Bible in Strasbourg, Zürich and at the University of Oxford. Vermigli was primarily a professor of the Bible, especially the Old Testament. Beginning in 1549, Vermigli became involved in controversy regarding the Eucharist. He published his disputation against Catholics at Oxford University along with a tract on the subject. He later wrote treatises on the Eucharist against Catholic and Lutheran theologians. After Vermigli's death, Robert Masson collected the doctrinal passages scattered throughout his biblical commentaries into a systematic theology called the Loci Communes, which became Vermigli's most well-known work. Several of Vermigli's letters and shorter treatises were also published during and after his life. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

The Gulf Stream is an 1899 oil painting by Winslow Homer. It shows a black man in a small rudderless fishing boat struggling against the waves of the sea, and was the artist's last statement on a theme that had interested him for more than a decade. The painting is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Painting: Winslow Homer

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